


Ad infinitum

by jamnesias



Category: Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: Goat Farm, Graphic Description, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, POV Alternating, Post Finale, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 13:06:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamnesias/pseuds/jamnesias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two times Nasir bathes Agron's wounds: the missing scene after the end of 'The Dead and The Dying', and one long after the events of 'Victory'.</p><p>'Once Nasir is ready, standing close between his knees with cloth and water, it strikes that all he can do is gaze. Look at him. Agron back, alive and sitting in their tent. It is enough to make head swim all over again.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ad infinitum

**Author's Note:**

> NASIR'S FACE in the deleted scene with Castus inspired this. UM, PAIN. And then of course, there is Agron's face whenever he looks at Nasir. YOUR FACE, your face, etc etc. I know the post crucifixion scene has probably been done to death, but I wanted to look at how the reunion might go, and then jump ahead to Goat Farm(!) and see how they deal with it later, how that all echoes on. The repetitions of the same conversations, the same actions. Rinse, bandage, repeat. Ad infinitum.

**(The Dead and The Dying)**

When they are inside their tent, Nasir helps Agron to lean against the table.

“A moment?” he asks.

Agron nods.

Whilst he fetches water, he feels Agron’s eyes following him around. And when he comes back, as he starts to peel the cloth away from Agron’s shoulders and body, as he strips him slowly - Agron gazes down at Nasir without pause and he feels it, the warmth of it, bright like sun on water.

In truth, they stare at each _other_. He keeps glancing up to look, to truly check, and finding eyes on him already. It is as he remembers from days before the city - from the temple, from Vesuvius, but with something different in the feel. When Agron is sitting on the edge of their bed, bare to naut but bandages, his skin still glows in the candlelight as it did before he left - the great width of his shoulders the same, his muscles still shifting in the manner Nasir knows deeply - but he holds himself differently. There is a weight to him. Not just exhaustion. Something else, seen and felt by loving eyes.

Once Nasir is ready, standing close between his knees with cloth and water, it strikes that all he can _do_ is gaze. Look at him. Agron back, alive and sitting in their tent. It is enough to make head swim all over again. Sharing words, touch. The brutal truth of injury to beloved form. The thought of him on cross flares constant in Nasir’s mind, burning, whispering at him. His heart had leapt into his mouth upon first sight of Spartacus and this gift, and still Nasir felt the lump he could not swallow past, the weakness in his legs from relief, madness. _Love_ thudding again in his throat.

He pauses, overcome, and Agron’s mouth twists.

“You drink in sight of ruined fool,” he says.

Nasir bites viciously at the tremor in his bottom lip and shakes his head. He puts the cloth aside to step closer, pressing up against warm body and reaching to once more cup Agron’s face in his hands.

“Not so.”

Agron stares up at him, blinking slow as if loathe to do so. He looks at Nasir as if seeing the stars. It makes breath run short and soar all at once; Nasir’s smile comes, gently, and he strokes Agron’s jaw with his thumbs.

“Not so,” he repeats.

“Do not give balming words out of pity,” Agron breathes. He is trying for rage but it comes more like a sigh. Nasir knows the signs from his gladiator. He sees the shape of this now; the words he does not say fully, the things not given form, the expression in his heavy gaze. “What if I speak fucking _true_?”

Agron uses words well, but now all that he cannot say is obvious. Nasir wants give his own, but his throat won’t work at first. Words for him were not of any use before, and have not been since.

He lifts Agron’s head slightly with his hands, instead, and leans to kiss him.

The first time in so many, many weeks. He smells the same, underneath old blood and sweat, and he makes a tiny noise of surprise against Nasir’s mouth, eyes widening. It is a wonder. Nasir kisses him again.

“If true then I am equal fool,” he says, and closes his eyes to kiss him better, deeper, and whisper against his lips. “For I _would_ _never stop_.”

Agron makes that wounded sound again. A hiccup, almost. “Nas- _ir—_ ”

“Shh.” He kisses his nose, his jaw, his bruised cheeks. Agron tries to hold himself taut, to resist with guilt or honour or something else completely unwanted by Nasir at this moment, but he also slips, tipping forward in hunger and need. Everything about it makes Nasir furious - each day has made him _furious -_ but also tender, strangely wild. He gulps for  breath and kisses Agron’s mouth again, moving fingers down to the nape of his gladiator’s neck, to _grip,_ tofeel the delicate bones behind his ears under his thumbs.

“Never—” He vows it again, sliding his tongue along Agron’s cracked lower lip, kissing his upper one“— _never—_ ”

Agron shudders, _whines_ and opens mouth against his.

“ _Yes_ ,” he breathes as well. He nods, kissing back, his forehead bumping against Nasir’s in his haste. “Never, _never_ —” His voice fails and his arms come up stiffly to wrap around the back of Nasir’s thighs and hold him close.

One cries, or perhaps both. No matter. Tears taste bitter on tongue, but also clean. Salt water. Nasir remembers a little of the sea. He does not fear it.

Afterwards, Nasir washes the bruises on Agron’s face. He runs the cloth down Agron’s throat, smudges the dirt and drips of water along his clavicle, careful of the angry red gash below. Agron murmurs something wordless, half-turning his head.

Slowly, slowly he has begun to fall forward with exhaustion, sitting as he is, eyes closed and ruined hands palm-up across his knees. Nasir holds him up. He washes chest, shoulders. Then the ugly slashes across Agron’s back. He bandages them, skimming his fingers across skin and fresh marks all the while. There is strange balm in this simple act of caring. He cannot _stop_ touching – his palm lays flat against Agron’s throat for a second, then moves to smooth across his chest. Reassuring both. He kneels to wash Agron’s sides, kisses the swell of his ribs in thanks that they yet hold breath in them. Dawn is yet far off, but he cannot think of sleep. His heart is _here._

He soaks Agron’s stomach, the dark hair on his lower belly, wipes his thighs. Agron’s cock stirs a little, maddeningly, flushing darker at the head and making his gladiator murmurs something under breath. Nasir hums in response, gets a ghost of a smile in reply. He kisses the inner curve of Agron’s thigh and watches the muscle twitch.

Finally, roughly bandaged hands are all that waits. Nasir lays his touch on Agron’s wrists and glances up to see his eyes open, unexpectedly precise.

“A heavy sight,” Agron warns. His mouth twists again.

“A heavy task,” Nasir corrects, “before much needed sleep.” He strokes his fingers down Agron’s arms, curls around his wrists to show him strength. _Here._ With Agron he has found a place beside, not behind. Something to fight for each day with breath and bones. He knows Agron: ruled by heart and gut, not head, yet ever the two fight each other as well. Sometimes it takes him time to see what is best, not only what he wants. Nasir knows what Agron needs. He waits until Agron nods, and smiles back, reaches up to run his thumb along Agron’s jaw again before bending to task.

The cloth unpeels stiffly. It sticks to one hand; Agron hisses and jerks his arm from the elbow. The holes in his palms gape, ragged, clogged with black blood. Nasir sees muscle, one flash of bone. His gut turns in a sharp, swooping dive, but he does not let it show on his face. He has seen worse, and also nothing so foul, but it matters not. He curls his own fingers in rage around the bandages, then drops them in the bowl and lays his fingers gently on Agron’s wrists instead. He finds the pulse on each. Agron curses under his breath and shifts, his expression full of heavy, desperate damage as well.

“When wounds heal,” Nasir promises, “we _shall_ inflict worse on those who dealt this blow.”

Agron says nothing. He ducks his head for a kiss instead, and gets one, fierce.

Nasir finds a fresh bowl of water to put Agron’s hands in. He hopes to soak them clean, instead of scrub. His own are shaking as he does it and he spills water on the table. Agron does not notice.

Sitting next to him on the bed, he helps him to lower his hands into the bowl. In the water, under the distorted reflection of firelight and ripples of flaking rust and gold, they look small. Impossible as the return of one thought lost. Not _those_ hands. They span Nasir’s chest, and grip him through arching, trembling - they hold his breath in them, they are so large, they hold-- 

“Will I feel you again?” Agron asks.

Nasir looks up, guilty. He was staring into the water, letting thoughts loop and drift dangerously ahead, same as his gladiator, whose head hangs over the bow, weary.

Nasir straightens his back. “Yes,” he says, firmly. He winds an arm around Agron’s waist again, pressing himself against him; half-support, half-pressure. “In all ways that hold meaning.”

Agron nods, watching as he flexes his wrists carefully in the bowl, slopping water over the sides. Then he nods again and turns to speak— Nasir meets his mouth halfway, because he can and he will never stop now that it is so, and Agron half-smiles against his lips before he pulls away.

“I made grave error.” His words tumble; a sudden rush to speak. “I see it now. To walk from your side…” He shakes his head, then twists his body awkwardly to press his forehead against Nasir’s. “I will not leave you again.” His eyes hold blue-green fire in them that Nasir recognises, and his words hit home like spear in heart. Like light. “Gods will have to _tear_ me from you.”

Nasir closes his eyes for a second and feels it, the thrumming chord of his spine, the laugh from deep inside. He laughs. Thank those gods, he is truly _able_ to. Joy bursts its way through his veins and turns him giddy. Ever these sweeping statements; ever the fierce vow behind. He never thought to hear such a thing again.

“At last,” he says, smiling. He butts his forehead gently against Agron’s, like an animal. “You find correct way of thinking.”

“I will not lose sight of it again.” Agron vows.

 

* * *

**(Victory)**

When he enters their home with his hand clasped to his shoulder, the blood already comes more slowly under his palm, but Nasir’s smile still flattens when he looks up from lighting the fire.

“Nothing deep,” Agron says, to soothe.

His warrior is quick, though, and has already jumped up to cross the room in three steps.

“ _What--_ ”

Nasir tugs his hand away and hisses at the reveal of the wound across the top of his chest, under cloak.  His eyes flick up, worried—and then as Agron watches, something lights in their dark depths and he frowns, glancing back down. Putting sense together, of course. Shape is fucking obvious, not only the slash from horn but the bruise starting to bloom next to it in shape of—

“Is that mark of _hoof_?”

Agron sighs.

Nasir’s smile blooms, quick and bright. The one that is like fire, catching branch. “…You battle our stock?”

“Not _all_.” Agron scowls, pushing past to snag the pitcher of wine on the table. “The buck. Did I not _say_ he carried hate for me?”

Nasir pauses, turning to follow him, torn somewhere between laughter and concern. “I recall you seeing a potential enemy in a tiny _goat—_ ”

“And now he has proved it!”

“You—” Nasir stares at him for a moment, mouth open, then starts to laugh. He _laughs_. Agron waits. Nasir laughs so hard that he has to lean on the door, with one hand on his scarred side to catch breath. “ _Agron_ ,” he gasps.

“Your concern moves me.” He scowls again, taking a gulp of wine. An overspill runs down his arm and drips off his elbow to splash the floor, and even whilst laughing at him, Nasir still notices. For a moment, the tiny line above his eyebrows wrinkles slightly at the sight, before he is shaking his head, grinning. It is the one that means _You will clean that up._ Agron had been surprised at how house-proud Nasir had turned out to be, when they’d found this place and made it their own. Before he’d realised it was stupid ever to have been. Nasir was organised. Bossy, even. Perhaps it came from slavery, perhaps it was in his blood. Either way he excelled in it.

He could have organised the trees to move into line, had he need, Castus had once said, watching him train new recruits.

Agron had scowled at him, too. He regrets that now with the same soft, warm sadness in his gut he has about many things. But Nasir laughs brightly, shutting the door and coming over, and Agron is happy, too.   

“Shut fucking _mouth_ ,” he complains, but he steps forward even as he says it, unable to stop his own smile. Nor his body, treacherous as always, giving up and putting the wine on the table so that he can step close and take Nasir by the hips, fitting the bones of them into his palms and twisting fingers loosely into his clothes. This is his best way of gripping, now, with what feeling that has returned, for which they thank the gods each day. One they have found together. The arch of bones to the pulse-beat in his palms.

Nasir meets him in the middle, turning his grin up to Agron and wrapping arms around his neck.

“You battle mighty opponents,” he teases.

He grunts. Nasir’s hips remain slim, even with the laziness of having one home and constant meals. The feel of them in hand turns Agron’s belly with desire, as it ever did. It is distracting.

“I tried only to direct him a way he did not wish to go.”

Nasir bites his bottom lip, still grinning, shaking his head.

“Of course.” He moves back, takes Agron’s hand and leads him to the bed. “Come.”

He bids Agron sit, drawing his cloak from shoulders. Then he fetches water and a bowl whilst Agron watches, drinking further. He tutts when he returns to see the wine pitcher, now empty.

Agron shrugs.

They are quiet as Nasir washes the wound. It is not deep, nor will it scar. Nothing compared to old. It makes Nasir chuckle every now and again, in unexpected stops and starts like a heartbeat, his eyes flicking up to Agron’s, his grin gentle. Agron’s heart follows, leaping and dropping as his eyes watch Nasir’s mouth, his dark lashes making shadows on his cheeks. His hair falls in his eyes, loose from the braid he put in this morning before Agron left for the fields and he to the market. He hadn’t offered to put one in Agron’s hair as well, even though it fell almost to his shoulders now, as both knew he was still undecided on whether to let it continue, or cut it, or twist it into the mats and braids he’d had once before. He would decide soon, and Nasir knew it, and let him wait until he did.

Agron loves him suddenly, with the thought of how much can lay unspoken between them.

“Your reflexes soften, perhaps,” Nasir says, considering, pressing gently on the bruise to test it.

Agron hisses, flinching back and glaring at him.

Sometimes he also hates Nasir. Little shit.

“I expected the headbutt, not the kick as _well_.”

“So speaks a gladiator...” Nasir sighs, but his face is full of laughter. He moves his fingers up across Agron’s shoulders into a stroke, a sweep of affection when Agron bares teeth, playing as well. Then they look at each other.

Nasir rubs a thumb along the old, old scar under Agron’s collarbone.

“This will mend, now.”

It’s the sign: that he may move.

“At fucking last—”He moves, skimming his palms and wrists up over Nasir’s thighs and higher to grab at him, at the sweet, strong muscles of his behind, to drag him closer by hooking ankles behind his calves. “Come _here_.”

His warrior stumbles into him, laughing into his kiss. Soon his chuckle drops softer, lower. Their kiss is wet and gentle, sloppy with the sharp taste of wine. Nasir’s expression when they come apart is gentle, then sharpens. He considers something for just a second. Agron sees it run across his face.

“You told me once,” he says, twisting his fingers into the long hair at the nape of Afgron’s neck, “that you were no shepherd. Do you seek to prove it?”

Agron groans, looking to the ceiling. “Words said before grave error should not be held in such merit, Nasir.”

Nasir just hums, maddening, darting around the subject. Agron still marvels at his lightness, his swiftness, his ability to be fierce one moment and to forgive, next. This old scar between them is one that Nasir insists is long-healed and Agron fears to probe, just in case. A gnawing doubt that lingers still.

“It was a deed you needed to do,” Nasir tells him, bringing him out of thought, deep memory. “And long done.”  

He makes a noncommittal noise, watching him close.  “Heavy debt remains.” He wants to tell him, again, over and over. “I will not leave your arms again.”

Nasir tutts once more, and then tugs on Agron’s hair, his grip sure and shocking. “Come.” He leans in and kisses Agron, then darts down and bites his jaw, shocking a gasp from his throat. “How can we make you forget it?”

“You little—”

Nasir bites him again, and Agron laughs, then groans, tilting his head back. Kisses on his throat, hot body up against his own, and the press of Nasir’s cock starting to nudge against his belly.

“ _Love_ ,” Nasir corrects him, and opens his mouth for Agron's, for the sweep of his tongue. “You little _love_.”

Agron agrees, with his mouth, his body, and his hands.


End file.
